LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Only as far as the Parker case is concerned.”

      “Figured as much. Jacob.” O’Keefe stopped him when he would have walked away. “Do us all a favor, and let someone else handle this.”

      Jacob smiled past his shoulder. “While I do what?”

      “Take a well-deserved vacation. Go to Tahiti, or Fiji or Hawaii. Swim. Drink. Get laid. Hell, connect with your mother’s family.”

      “Yeah, right. I’ll rehash my mother’s life in New Zealand and follow it up with her death here in Cincinnati. Thanks, but I’d rather stay and do battle with Critch.”

      “He’s obsessed, Jacob.”

      “I’m not a rookie, Mick.” He countered O’Keefe’s frustrated stare with a steady one of his own. “I won’t let him hurt her.”

      “Or you.”

      A faint smile crept in. “Or me.”

      O’Keefe rumpled his hair again. He reminded most people of a tall, well-built teddy bear, with his perpetually kind face, his soulful eyes and a mop of brown curls that were only now, in his mid-forties, beginning to creep back from his forehead. But Jacob knew the man behind the facade. He’d worked with him for eight years—and had seen firsthand just how deceptive teddy bears could be.

      The eyes before him grew troubled. “You know she’s not your type, don’t you?”

      He’d been waiting for this, Jacob reflected, and made himself look away. “I never thought she was.”

      “But you’re interested.”

      “No.” Jacob met his eyes. “I’m not.”

      “Hmm, you lie so well, I can’t tell the difference anymore. You don’t want her, she doesn’t want you—or probably me, either, for that matter, but I’m a hopeful schmuck who needs to be rebuffed to his face before he’ll give up. My kid likes her.”

      Jacob glanced down at the file. “Why don’t you send Romana to Hawaii for the holidays?”

      O’Keefe opened his mouth, but it was a more velvety voice that replied, “Won’t work, Knight. Romana’s not a run-and-hide kind of person.”

      She strode up to them from the side, smiled at O’Keefe, then went toe-to-toe with Jacob. If she’d been a hothead like Mick’s ex-wife, she’d probably have punched him. Come to think of it, that might not be a bad idea. If nothing else, a punch would ease the gridlock of tension and mounting desire in his stomach.

      “What are you doing here, Romana?” Jacob kept his tone calm and his expression neutral.

      A sideways glance drew O’Keefe into her answer. “I got a phone call forty minutes ago. The guy claimed to be an elf, said he wanted to go over my Christmas wish list with me. Since I’d just stepped out of the shower, I told him my only wish was for him to hang up. To which he replied, ‘Wrong answer, cop saver. What you should wish is to be a cat. But even nine lives won’t help you now. Santa Critch is going to hunt you down and poison your holidays. Sad to say, Romana Grey. You’ve seen your last merry Christmas Day.’”

      SOMETIMES, ROMANA REFLECTED with a shudder, a photographic memory was just plain creepy. The verse at the end of Critch’s early morning phone call sang in her head all day. In the same elfin voice he’d used—which only made the effect that much freakier.

      Naturally, the call was untraceable. Critch had stolen a cell phone from a Cincinnati resident who’d been standing, half-asleep, at a bus stop. He’d used the device for his own purposes, then ditched the phone. Mission accomplished, from his perspective.

      From Romana’s, life carried on. She wasn’t prepared to let Critch affect it, even on the smallest level.

      After leaving the police station, she spent Saturday morning and most of the afternoon Christmas shopping with two of her sisters-in-law and six nephews under the age of five. As a rule, she enjoyed taking them to toy stores, loved watching them bounce on Santa’s knee; however, by five o’clock, even her abundant energy was sapped. In fact, she was so wiped out that the path lab at the hospital was starting to look good.

      Or not, she amended as she pushed through the side door and began her solitary descent.

      Organ music wafted out of invisible speakers. Critch’s rhyming threat jangled in her brain. “Sad to say, Romana Grey, you’ve seen your last merry Christmas Day.”

      “Jerk,” she muttered, and, twitching a shoulder, pushed through another door.

      An attendant she didn’t recognize passed her in the antiseptic green corridor. The woman wore headphones and a blank expression as she hummed along to a hip-hop song. But even her off-key humming was better than the churchlike version of “Sleigh Ride” currently playing on the path lab’s sound system.

      Although weekends tended to be quiet on the lower levels, Romana knew Fitz was here somewhere. The trick would be to locate her cousin before she bumped into someone who re membered her as Connor Hanson’s wife.

      “Romana?”

      Too late. The man’s voice came from her right. Steeling herself, Romana turned—and exhaled with relief when she saw who it was.

      “Dylan, hi.” She rubbed her left temple where a headache had been brewing since lunchtime. “What brings you to Death Central?”

      Belinda Critch’s brother, Dylan Hoag, closed the electrical box he’d been examining. “I’m checking out the security system. They had a wiring problem down here yesterday.”

      “Heard about it. Fitz,” she explained at his elevated eyebrow. “Have you seen her?”

      “We had a chat, but Patrick whisked her away, said he needed help. Must be hard to trim a corpse’s fingernails all by your lonesome.”

      Romana strolled closer, ran a teasing finger over his shoulder. “I sense a chip here, Mr. Hoag. Toward Patrick, I wonder, or the forensics team in general?”

      “The team could be better. Standards have slipped since Doctor Gorman retired.”

      Now she patted his shoulder. “Hate to tell you this, Dylan, but they were slipping while Gorman was here. He was well past his prime when the hospital board decided to force the retirement issue.”

      “Then there were Connor’s indiscretions.” Dylan’s tone soured. “And Belinda’s death.”

      A tick in his jaw accompanied the bitter statement. Romana wanted to respond, but couldn’t think of anything comforting to say. She settled for another pat and left him to finish his inspection of the breaker box.

      Dylan hadn’t changed much in the eight-plus years she’d known him. His hair was light brown, short and spiky. He kept his tall frame trim and his somewhat angular features a deliberate blank. It was his idea of a cop look. Sadly, although they’d entered the Academy at the same time, Dylan had washed out halfway through the program.

      Romana didn’t know why the memory should strike her right then, but she recalled Dylan’s reaction quite clearly as he’d been given the news. Resentment had flared for about five seconds before he’d doused it. He’d aimed a long, steely glare at the sergeant, then turned on his heel and stalked away.

      Six months later, he’d formed his own company—with a handful of employees and the endorsement of one extremely influential businessman.

      James Barret…Romana rolled the name over, caught Dylan staring and set it aside.

      “You look frazzled,” he noted in his more usual low-key fashion.

      She regarded the ends of her hair and tried not to picture what his idea of frazzled entailed. When his gaze slid to her face, she caught just enough of his expression for comprehension to click in. “You thought it was because of Warren Critch, didn’t you?”

      He

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